Green Tea

Green Tea is combinations of a simple story, and a very intricate background. This movie caught my attention from the very first scene. A single woman (Zhao Wei) met her blind-date in a tea-house. After a very short moment of exchange of words, we saw an intellectual smile emerged on her face - we now knew that this movie wouldn't be like the typical blind-dated movie we were accustomed to. Green Tea is Zhang Yuan's best work yet with the help of his cinematographer, stage designer and music composer. Last but not least, Zhang Yuan was fortunate enough to have not one but two of the super-duper from China: Zhao Wei and Jiang Wen acting in his movie. The chemical bond btw them was a joyful treatment for the audience. (It was like watching Jodie and Anthony in Silence of the Lambs - but with a different mood.) I wish Zhang Yuan and the entire cast and crew to make another movie together. Hopefully, it's the sequel of Green Tea.

Vicki Zhao have a good performance in it. She is the most talented actress in Asia.

Don't pay attention to the star rating, this movie was one of the picks of this years Rotterdam festival. I found it rather confusing at points and this was made no easier by some apparently rushed subtitling, hopefully this will be resolved if it is more widely released. The story centers on a world weary man who becomes obsessed with a serial blind-dating student, who bears a resemblance to a nightclub singer/pianist. The film has the same interesting plot twists that can make new Chinese cinema so good, but benefits enormously from external cinematography courtesy of Chris Doyle. The acting is engaging and the soundtrack excellent. A definite must see if you have an interest in new Chinese cinema.

One of the first things you need to know about this film is that its cinematographer is Christopher Doyle, the man responsible for the look of most Wong Kar-wai films: saturated colors and extreme camera angles. You'll find them here. He was also the cinematographer on Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), one of the most beautiful films ever made. With that in mind, you have a pretty good hint that with Green Tea you're in store for something a little different from director Zhang Yuan.

This is a beautiful film, a colorful love poem to, about, and starring, Chinese actress Zhao Wei (a.k.a. Vicki Zhao). The woman is photographed so adoringly it's almost creepy. She plays two different and distinct roles in the film: a bespectacled graduate student and a sultry piano lounge singer—so librarian fetishists and jazzy drunks alike can fantasize out loud. The funny part, though, is that we're supposed to play along with the notion that donning a pair of bookish glasses suddenly makes Zhao one of those women "who become attractive over time", ya know, ugly. Yeah, right.

Zhao's graduate student character, Fang, is a serial blind-dater, anxious to marry, unwilling or unable to rid herself of a guy who is pretty sure she will become attractive over time. She does. So much so that when he meets her doppleganger, Lang, in the piano lounge, a woman reputed to be 'easy', he finds himself ever more drawn to Fang—probably because she is so hard. He is sure they are the same woman but Lang denies it and they strike up a friendly relationship filled with discussions of life and love. There is mature sexual politics running throughout the film for those who can't ingest ice cream without meat but you needn't get bogged down by it. This film is so thick on the surface its depth becomes muted. Beyond the ambiguous nature of the doppleganger scenario, there is also the story Fang relates to her suitor—which runs the length of the film infusing all the characters—about a friend who reads people's fortunes in tea leaves, who may or may not actually be Fang, who witnessed her mother kill her father, and stuff like that. Fang suggests she might just be making it all up. Her suitor doesn't care because fact and fiction reveal equally, but it starts to get complicated when details of the story begin to emerge in the real life of Lang ... who may or may not be Fang.

Green Tea is a gloriously gorgeous and fun ride. It's arty and complicated, maybe a little loose. The conversations and games of cat and mouse are witty and smart but at times you may find yourself more interested in trying to peer around something which seems to be in the way of what is being photographed than in piecing together the story. Stuff like that happens in this intelligent romance.

Okay, now you will have to forgive me if I am truly the only one who has missed something profound. Mostly I am into HK action, but this movie intrigued me from other's reviews here. However although I found the camera angles and imagery very beautiful, the plot is lacking. This may be because it was lost in translation although the subtitles were at least grammatically correct. The movie kept me involved (unlike most other "artsy" western movies) until it ended suddenly without warning, giving no resolution that I could glean. Overall, unless you actually like art films and can grasp at something deeper or simply want to stare at Vicky Zhao's face, I do not recommend you see this film.

Though this film lacks a conventional plot, if you analyze the film

you will see a developing theme. Like other 6th generation Chinese films, the film puts an emphasis on urban china. One character, Wu Fang, always orders green tea whenever she dates. At each date she never tells stories of her own life, but only of her friend and her friend's puzzling family life. This shows her desire to keep her identity a secret, but the viewer must believe that these could be stories about her own dysfunctional family. The other character, Lang Lang has the same face as Wu Fang, but a strikingly different personality. Lang is never conservative, and only appears at night. When we see Fang, we always see her during the day. The man is puzzled and intrigued by both women, one a night-life girl and the graduate student. His pursuit of both women portray's man's classic fight to encompass both a party girl and a smart, intelligent woman. Though the movie ends suddenly, viewers will find that it has a shocking revelation at the end, one that keeps you talking after the film ends.